


Carry Them With Me

by Birdie3



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Rooms in the TARDIS, TARDIS - Freeform, the stone rose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-10-04 13:46:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20472020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Birdie3/pseuds/Birdie3
Summary: “You created all this?” Martha chokes out. He shrugs. “And what, its sub par?”“Compared to the original, yes.” And again, it feels as if they are talking about something else.“What, not good enough for her?” Martha jokes, and that’s when the Doctor’s eyes lock onto hers.





	Carry Them With Me

The Tardis reminds Martha of Hogwarts, with moving corridors and rooms that simply appear where she could have sworn they weren’t before. She’s properly lost today, but doesn’t mind a bit. Martha has always loved getting lost, as it's always the best way to discovery--something she and the Doctor certainly have in common. Her lips grow a bit thin as she thinks just how compatible her and the Doctor are. What a great couple they would make if he could only stop treating her as a rebound. 

A glint of light distracts that thought. Further down the corridor, rays of sunlight are streaming through. Streaming from where? Martha wonders, there’s no windows on the Tardis that she can think of, and anyway she is pretty sure they’re hovering in the vortex where the sun certainly does not shine. Stepping closer to the light, a breeze hits her--the coolest, most pleasant breeze. It smells delightful--slightly tart and dewey, like apples and freshly mown grass. If she’s not mistaken, she can hear birds. She follows these sensations down the corridor, until suddenly it opens up into a wide grove. This stops her in her tracks--before her is a gorgeous dusk pink sky, and trees, the most beautiful trees! She can hear a brook, and sure enough in the distance a small stream is running. 

She feels a bit light headed from the shock of it all, and has to run back to the corridor just to check she is still on the Tardis and hasn’t been accidentally transported somewhere. But boy is this ship good--a whole ecosystem brimming with life! She spots foxes playing in the distance, a family of rabbits huddled underneath a bush. She ventures further in, and realizes she can’t even see where this room ends, she’s staring a proper horizon. In the distance, though, is a hill with a figure sitting at the top, literally glowing with the afternoon sunlight. She heads in the direction. 

When she reaches the top of the hill, she’s come to a rose garden with the most vibrant roses of all different colors, the statue in the middle with its back turned to her. Before taking a better look at the statue, first she’s astonished by the view. Over the hill is the most pristine lake, absolutely glistening in front of snow capped mountains. Talk about bigger on the inside. 

After thoroughly taking it all in, she turns to what drew her to the top of the hill in the first place. Now, she properly gasps. Staring out at the scene as if she owns it, and Martha concedes she in fact does, is the face of a beautiful woman. Although the marble it is carved of is white, the setting sun makes her glint the same rose color as the horizon. She looks like a Roman Goddess of some sort, in her dress holding a cornucopia, but Martha is struck by the expression of kindness, strength, and love. More than any of those old statues Martha has seen, this one was carved capturing something Martha can’t put into words, let alone believe someone could put into stone. 

But the longer she stares, something nags at the back of her head. The statue looks quite familiar, she thinks. As she is mulling this over, she hears a cough behind her. Startled, having forgotten entirely that she is aboard a spaceship with another being, she turns to the Doctor. He isn't looking at her, but instead at the woman. And the look in his eyes is the exact _ something _ reflected on the beautiful marble face.

Martha laughs a bit uneasily at his expression, though she tries to hide it. “Been hiding this from me?” She gestures to the scenery around them, but maybe they both know she is talking about the statue. It is as if this whole world is centered around her, had been made for her to reign over. 

The Doctor doesn’t answer, but also casts a glance around, almost dissatisfied at what he sees. “Ah all that?” He finally says, his voice hollow. “Not the best I’ve created.”

“You created all this?” Martha chokes out. He shrugs. “And what, its sub par?”

“Compared to the original, yes.” And again, it feels as if they are talking about something else. 

“What, not good enough for her?” Martha jokes, and that’s when the Doctor’s eyes lock onto hers. 

“No, it’s not.” The intensity of his gaze drives Martha to look away, back at the woman. She is stunning, and Martha feels loved under her gaze, although she doesn’t know her. Although she isn’t flesh, but unfeeling marble.

“But wait a minute” Martha says after a few moments silence. “I’ve seen her before.” And for a moment the Doctor's eyes grow wide, as if she’s said something impossible. Martha whips out her phone and does a quick google search. “Aha! Yeah, see here”-- she shoves the phone in the Doctor’s face. He puts on his glasses and stares at the headline from 2008: _ Statue of Goddess Fortuna Missing from British Museum, Authorities Dumbfounded. _“I went to this museum in school! I saw this statue before it was taken! And what, it was you who stole it?!”

“Oi! She’s mine!” The Doctor fires back, “Artist’s privilege.” 

Martha doesn’t say anything for a moment, and then in a small voice as if she were in the museum itself “you carved her?” 

He flashes a grin that doesn’t reach his eyes, not even close. “Best student MichaelAngelo ever had.” 

Martha lets this sink in. Not that he was a student of MichaelAngelo, he’s always boasting about stuff like that. But lets it properly sink in that he was the one who carved this statue radiating with love. 

“Who was she?” Martha asks quietly, although she knows already. 

“My good luck charm,” He sighs with the weight of the universe. “But my luck ran out.”

...

  


_ “Have you got family?” _

_ “No. Lost them a long time ago.” _

_ “How do you cope with that?” _

As the sun sets over the glistening lake, dusk creating a soft rose wash over the landscape, a woman lies back on the apple grass. She speaks animatedly while the marble woman gazes down affectionately.

“And I’m blonde now! Can you imagine?” She gives a loud bark of laughter. “We’d be matching. Mind you, still am waiting on that ginger--but at least it’s not grey anymore. And do you like my new coat? Oh you should see these new friends of mine I picked up- helped me get back to the Tardis when I’d lost her. Fell from the sky with nothing but a suit twice my size. You’d have been laughing at that.” 

Her chuckle fades, and she grows quiet for some time, breathing in the applegrass, and gazing at the face above her. She closes her eyes, to imagine that the marble has blushed cheeks, and that her mouth can curl into a toothy grin, with a tongue peeking out--an image that even 3 regenerations hasn’t been able to tear from her mind.

_ “I carry them with me. What they would’ve thought and said and done. Make them a part of who I am. So even though they’re gone from the world, they’re never gone from me.” _

“Rose Tyler-” She lets the sound of the precious name roll off her lips the way it used to when she got to say it everyday, all skinny and in pinstripes. “I love you.”


End file.
